Vocabulary is key.
So, what words do I teach?
There are many online vocabulary lists of words that are encountered at each grade level. In 3rd grade, I teach 100 3rd grade and 100 4th grade vocabulary words. The reading level of your entire class will go up if you do this for 15 minutes every day. Teach What Works 200 Words a Year = 7 Words a Week, 15 minutes a day
The mind is a pattern seeker. Teaching vocabulary is not having your students memorize endless lists of difficult words. Look at the list you have downloaded and categorize it. Emotions, Outdoors, Action, Personal Qualities, are just some ways of categorizing your master list. Then teach it your way. It means more than one thing. Write down multiple meanings whenever possible. Make connections to latin roots whenever possible, and use kid-friendly definitions. Teach incidentally and purposefully. When your students come across an unknown word: use contextual clues to guess the meaning, talk about what it might mean, and let your students wrestle with it. Let them write it down in their word logs, and post new words so the entire class can see it.
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